What is the difference between a natural and a field experiment?

 A field experiment is where the independent variable (IV) is manipulated and dependent variable (DV) is measured but the experiment is carried out in a setting that is natural to the participant. This is beneficial as it increases the ecological validity of the experiment being carried out as the environment mirrors one they experience in real life and therefore their behaviour is more likely to replicate what they would actually do. Similarly, as the participants are less likely to know they are in an experiment they are more likely to act naturally and less likely to show demand characteristics and adapt their behaviour to what they believe the researcher wants them to do. However, due to the nature of a field experiment it can make it harder to gain informed consent and keep a participant’s confidentiality. There are weaknesses to using a field experiment as it is not possible to control for all variables in the environment of the study and therefore there may be other variables (extraneous variables) that may be impacting the DV rather than just the manipulated IV which impacts the extent to which a cause-effect relationship can be established. They are also very difficult to directly replicate and there is the potential to have a biased sample for the study as the participants are putting themselves in that environment. This also means there is often no random allocation of the IV. A natural experiment is otherwise known as a quasi-experiment as the researcher is unable to manipulate the IV as is pre-exists such as gender but the DV is still measured based on this naturally occurring IV. Like in a field experiment the study is carried out in the participant’s natural environment and therefore there is high ecological validity and a decreased chance of demand characteristics being present. There are the same ethical issues as a field experiment and so it is very important to debrief participants at the end of the experiment. As the IV cannot be manipulated there is the potential for there to be a sampling bias. Extraneous variables are also a problem in a natural experiment, however natural experiments are particularly useful for studying areas where it would be unethical to manipulate the IV such as depression.